In 1981, a pair of advertising executives named Al Ries and Jack Trout published a slim volume titled Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. At the time, the American corporate landscape was dominated by the belief that superior engineering and exhaustive feature lists were the primary drivers of market share. Ries and Trout argued the opposite: that the marketplace is not a battlefield of products, but a battlefield of perceptions. They suggested that the human mind, overwhelmed by an estimated 500 advertisements a day in the early eighties, had developed a biological defense mechanism against information. It was a radical shift in commercial theory.

The data supporting this shift was stark. In the car rental market of the 1960s and 70s, Hertz held the "number one" position with a market share that often doubled its nearest competitor, Avis. Avis did not attempt to out-feature Hertz by offering more cars or faster check-ins; instead, they famously leaned into their second-place status with the "We Try Harder" campaign. By acknowledging their position relative to the leader, Avis saw its market share jump from 11% to 35% in just four years. They didn't change the cars; they changed the mental shelf they occupied.